Guilty as charged
by Mrstrentreznor
Summary: Jake asks Bella to get a message to Paul in Forks Police station; he's being held for murder after being found near the body of a murdered hiker. NM AU,


**Prompt 6 – jail**

One of my one shots for the Truly Anon Twi fic contest. 45 photo prompts, I wrote 13 stories. Clearly have major issues... lol. The prompts can be seen at the contest site

ficcontest. info/?page_id=924

Prompt 6 – was a colour shot of a man's hands. They were resting on the cross bar of a jail cell door. A cigarette was held between finger and thumb of the left hand.

Rating: MA - for themes. NM AU

Word count: 3200

Disclaimer: _the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their Gods._

* * *

><p><strong>Guilty as charged<strong>

She saw his hands first. She had dropped into the police station to deliver some more cookies for the deputies. They let her through into the back part of the Police Station as always. She was the Chief of Police's daughter and she came in every couple of days or so. Deputy Steve and Deputy Mark greeted her effusively; they loved her baking.

"Jeez, Bells," whined Deputy Mark. "My wife has me on a sugar free diet." They called her Bells, because her father did.

"Oh," she said. "I could make sugar free if you'd like, Mark. "I bake sugar free for Billy Black out on the reservation."

"Of course, you'd know Billy. I hadn't thought about that," said Deputy Steve.

"Dad's fishing buddy," she confirmed. "Although they haven't been fishing much lately."

Nobody had. The whole town was on edge after the murders of some tourists. They looked like they had been attacked by something half human. Charlie was not convinced it was a bear attack. But the newspapers had initially reported them as animal attacks. As a law enforcement officer he was not sure which he preferred; misinformation or the lack of public panic.

The region relied a lot on tourism; both land and sea. Tourists did diving or fishing cruises, plus nature walks and hiking inland and fishing on the plentiful lakes in the region too. Animal attacks were bad enough, but to have reports of a serial killer in the area? That would be a nightmare.

They had someone in the lockup. She could see his hands. They were the hands of a man, with prominent veins and neatly trimmed nails. They rested easily on the bars of the prison cell. A cloud of smoke billowed out as he exhaled. He held the cigarette between thumb and forefinger. His skin was tanned or dark, she couldn't see very well from the angle she was looking at.

"Is he allowed to smoke in here?" she asked.

Deputy Mark glanced towards the cells. "He's having a _very_ bad day, Bells. It keeps him quiet."

"Oh," she said. He sounded dangerous. Like a wild animal that needed to be kept quiet. She watched those hands. For some reason they fascinated her. So manly; so …male.

"Oh, yeah," agreed Steve. "He's a wild one, all right."

"Really?" she squeaked.

"Murder," said Steve conspiratorially.

"**The** murders?" Bella asked.

"That's what he has been charged with. At least I think Charlie charged him. He's in here for his own protection, right now."

She knew cops and she picked up some of what they did. If you were charged with a crime, you generally got bail or got released on your own recognisance; a promise to come back when they asked you to. Unless, you had a criminal record or they thought you might be a flight risk. If this guy was still in here, then he was dangerous.

Those hands might have hurt people. Or killed them. She felt sick.

"I-I should go," she mumbled.

"Okay," Mark chirped. He was already rifling around in the Tupperware container. "Ooh, peanut butter cookies."

Bella backed off and made her way hurriedly out of the police station. She started her truck and was half way home when her phone rang. It was Jake's ringtone. She pulled over to the side of the road and answered it.

"Bells, where are you?" Jake asked without preamble.

"Well, hello to-"

"No time," he interrupted. "Can you get to the police station?"

"What? I was just there. What's the problem?"

"Can you get a message to Paul?"

"Paul?" she squeaked.

She knew about the wolf pack. She had half worked it out for herself; with some heavy hints from Jake about wolves and Cold Ones months earlier. And of course, Paul Lahote had phased right in front of her. Let the wolf out of the bag or whatever Embry had quipped. After insulting her and making her mad enough to want to hit someone for the first time in her life. He always made her mad.

"Can you talk to him?" Jake pressed.

She suddenly put two and two together. "He's in the jail," she said.

"Yeah, supposedly charged with murder," Jake added. "Look, Bells. Just tell him it's okay."

"But… but he's charged with murder," she almost whispered.

"Pffft," said Jake. "It's not him. The dumbass didn't get away from a vampire kill scene fast enough and one of the deputies saw him."

"Saw him as a human?" she checked.

"Yeah. Fucking idiot! That will teach him to not argue with Sam all the time." Jake didn't sound sympathetic at all.

"B-but the deputies said he was dangerous."

"Only if you are female," Jake laughed.

"Jake, I **am** female," she pointed out.

"Oh, yeah," he said, and then he laughed.

Bella didn't think it was funny. Clearly Paul was dangerous or they would have let him out on bail. "What else should I tell him? The whole message cannot be 'it's okay' now, can it?"

"Sure, sure. Tell him Sam said to behave. Another day or so and then we should have this thing taken down. It'll be easier if the forest isn't full of police and trackers trying to help and just getting in the way."

"Without Paul?" she asked. She knew he was a strong wolf.

"Oh puleez, I can take him."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine," she huffed. "I'll go talk to him."

"Thanks Bells. The pack owes you one." He hung up.

She started the truck again and did a U-turn. Back to the police station. What was her excuse? She tried to think. She couldn't go in and say she wanted to talk to Paul. How was she going to talk to him? She would have to think of something. She sighed. He already unnerved her… he was just so masculine. It sounded dumb, but she couldn't think how else to describe it. Paul could give you a look, as if he was imagining you naked, and planning what he was going to do to you, while you were naked. It made her squirm.

And he knew it.

She sighed again.

She parked at the Station and ambled back in the front door. She waved at the receptionist and got buzzed through.

Bingo. Steve and Mark were gone.

She darted towards the cells, grabbing a coffee mug as she went. She heard him sniff.

"Strawberries; she's baa-aack," he crowed.

"Shut up. Jake asked me to talk to you." She was now standing in front of him. He had finished the cigarette by then, but his hands were still resting on top of the cross bar in the caged wall.

"Hello, leech lover," he breathed at her.

"Do you really think you should be offensive? Now?" If she kept snarking at him; she might make it through the interview. Oddly she felt like the one condemned. She stepped closer to him as if to confide a secret; which of course, she kind of was. He watched her speculatively.

"Sam says be good -"

He snorted.

She ignored him. "Another day or so and then they should have this thing taken down. It'll be easier if the forest isn't full of police and trackers trying to help and just getting in the way," she repeated verbatim.

He studied her. "I'm always good," he whispered in a low, throaty voice.

She inhaled a little.

"You wanna be my death row pen pal, Bella?" he asked her.

"Death row?" she squeaked.

"Yeah… naked… near a mutilated corpse; a mutilated _female_ corpse. They might throw the book at me. Life." He smirked at her.

She was suddenly assailed by an image of Paul naked. It wasn't hard for her to fill in the gaps; he was usually _half_ naked.

"Aah…" she mumbled.

His head tilted. He gave her **that** look.

Unmf.

"You could come for conjugal visits," he added.

"What? We're not married," she blustered. What was wrong with her? That _that_ was the only part of that statement that she objected to?

He snickered. He grinned at her.

He moved with supernatural speed. His hands reached through the bars and he grabbed the top of her arms and he hauled her over to the barred door and he kissed her. He kissed her hard.

It took her too long to react. She pushed away from him and she glared at him. She couldn't manage to get any words out. She gaped at him like a fish. She just stood there.

She finally got her brain and her mouth working at the same time. "Y-You…" she squeaked as she pointed at him.

"Paul," Charlie chided, as he walked into the room. "What have you done, now?"

"Just talking to Bells, Chief," Paul replied.

Bella shut her mouth and glared at him impotently.

"What are you doing here?" Charlie asked her with a puzzled look on his face.

She waved the coffee mug at him. "I came to get your mug. It needs a proper scrubbing… all that crap built up inside. The stains…" she trailed off.

Charlie just looked at her. Paul winked at her behind Charlie's back.

"I-I should go," she blustered. She ran away. Both Paul and Charlie watched her go.

That night over the dinner table, she quizzed Charlie about Paul; for the pack, she told herself. Not for any other reason.

"Why haven't you released him?" she asked.

Charlie took a sip of his beer. "Look, I know that kid. He's cheeky and he can get a little over the top if he gets into a fight, but he's not a murderer."

"Didn't a witness see him?"

"I don't know what he was doing there," Charlie stated. "But the injuries don't match anything I have ever seen before and if he was naked, he wasn't carrying any weapons. And there is nothing dumped nearby that he could have dropped or hidden before he got arrested."

True and logical when she thought about it. "But he's still in prison?" Bella checked.

"Yeah. He's got a few assaults on his record. But mostly he's in there for his own good." Charlie sighed and rubbed his eyes. "If he could just keep it in his pants," he muttered. "Jamie Winters has threatened to kill him."

"The tourist shop owner?" Bella checked.

"Yeah, evidently Paul and Mrs Winters… are close," Charlie said, and then blushed almost as badly as Bella did when she talked about sex.

"B-but she must be in her thirties," Bella bleated.

"Old enough to know better." Charlie shook his head.

She suddenly thought of something. The easy way Charlie had been with Paul. "Does he know that?" she asked.

"Yeah. I told him," Charlie said. "He knows."

The sneaky little shit. She could slap him. "He told me he was going to get life."

Charlie roared with laughter. "For being in the wrong bed? You could arrest a quarter of the town for that."

"Humph," Bella responded. But that night as she lay in bed, she thought about that kiss. He really _did_ know what to do with a woman, if he was sleeping with older women; older married women. It wasn't just a look.

She went back to see him the next day. It was Saturday and she didn't have school.

He was waiting for her. By the bars. She guessed that he smelt her coming.

"Hey, leech lover. Can I call you LL," he quipped. "It's even part of your name. B-e-l-l-a."

She frowned at him. Leech lover. She wished that she swore so that she could call him a name.

He raised his eyebrows.

"Why did you kiss me?" she asked him. She didn't know where she got the courage to ask. It just blurted out.

He leaned in closer to her; as close as the bars would allow. "I wanted to," he said it in a low, sultry voice. "And _you_ wanted me to."

"I did not," she squeaked.

He just touched the side of his nose with a finger and winked at her.

"OOohhh," she squealed and waved her arms in frustration. She stomped out of the room. She could hear him laugh.

Charlie looked up from some paperwork. "Oh, you're here," he stated obviously. "Can you give Paul a lift out to La Push?"

The universe was against her. "He can't run?" she asked.

Charlie gave her a very odd look. "You'll be going to visit Jake anyway. Just give the guy a lift. As if he could run that far?"

Bella sighed. "You really want me alone in my truck… with that… that… womaniser?"

"You're hardly in his usual age bracket, Bells," Charlie pointed out. "And you have your pepper spray?" He was always making her carry pepper spray.

"Fine," she huffed. "I'll be waiting at the truck."

She watched Paul walk out. He had a way of walking with a kind of bounce in his step; it looked so physical. Gah. She had to stop watching him.

"Taxi!" he shouted at her.

She gave him a look. "You can run all the way if you like."

He grinned at her. "Can I drive?"

"No."

"Cool. Leaves my hands free."

Ugh.

She sat like a stone as close to her doorway as she could get. Paul lolled half way across the seat. He tapped on the window frame with his fingers as if he was drumming along with a song he was singing in his head.

"Why don't you have a radio?" He looked at the scratched and damaged dashboard where she had pried out the Cullens' gift stereo.

"Don't like music anymore," she grumbled.

"Why not?"

"None of your business."

"Oh. Something to do with _him_."

Silence.

"He screwed you over pretty badly, huh?"

No answer. She stared stolidly ahead.

"What a jerk. To leave you like that; in the forest."

She suddenly realised something; Paul was part of the search party that had found her that night. He and Sam and Jared, had seen her at her worst. Depressed, half frozen and completely and utterly heartbroken.

She wanted to defend Edward, but he **did** leave her in the forest and he did blame her for having to leave. She didn't know what happened, but suddenly a tear trickled down her cheek. The tear was quickly followed by another and then she emitted a strangled sob.

"Hey, hey," Paul grabbed the wheel and steered the truck carefully over to the side of the road. By then she was sobbing; great gulping sobs. The night she was lost, she had been in shock. She had moved from shock, to disbelief to catatonia. She had never really mourned. She had screamed in her sleep, but she had never actually moved to the next step. The steps of grieving were numbness, searching/yearning, disorganization/despair and then reorganization and recovery. She had got jammed in the first part. She had never really moved another step along the process.

"He told me _**I**_ was not good for **him**," she wailed.

Paul turned the motor off. He undid her seatbelt, hauled her across the seat and into his arms.

"He s-said that h-he d-didn't want m-me to g-go with h-him."

"Shhh," he comforted her. He was so warm.

"He said…" she sobbed in a breath. "That it w-would be as if he n-never existed. That I was h-human… that I h-had a m-memory like a s-sieve… that I would j-just forget h-him."

"What a douchebag," Paul said.

"He w-wouldn't even l-let Alice say g-goodbye. He said he h-had told h-her that it w-would be b-better to have a c-clean b-break. She was my best friend."

He held her cheeks in his hands and his dark, dark eyes looked into hers. He looked worried and sympathetic and so concerned about her. He wasn't the douche bag he pretended to be.

"A-And then he just left…"

"And you tried to follow him… that's why you got lost," he guessed.

She just nodded.

"Oh Bella." He hugged her in against his chest and he kissed her forehead.

They sat there at the side of the road until her sobs had quietened to hiccups. She found some tissues in her bag and blew her nose, noisily.

"I'll drive," Paul announced.

She lay down on the seat and curled up into the foetal position. She laid her head on his thigh. He put a hand on top of her head and brushed her hair slowly off her face.

"Jake's?" he asked. He kept driving when she didn't answer him.

Eventually he spoke again, "Sam was so worried about you. You had your face in a puddle and you couldn't even move. He had to lift you and carry you."

"I remember… the black wolf."

"Yeah? So the whole pack worries about you."

"The whole pack?" she checked.

Silence.

"We'll be at Jake's soon. Are you okay, now?"

"Yes."

"Our secret," he suggested.

"What? That you're actually a nice guy."

"And that you're still hung up on a vampire."

That was fair; ugly but fair. "Yes," she admitted.

"But you're on the road to recovery now," he noted.

"Yes. I suppose I am."

"Good."

"Thank you."

"You had better sit up, before we get to Jake's."

"Why?"

Paul gave her an odd look. "He's in love with you. You never noticed?"

"He is?"

"He is." It was a statement.

"Oh." That explained a lot of things. "But you kissed me."

"I can always tease him, that I kissed you first."

She snorted. "You asshole."

"Yep," he agreed.

As they pulled up, Jake met the truck. He had the door open and she was suddenly in his arms. He crushed her to his chest and spun her around the way he always did, but now it felt right. Paul winked at her over Jake's shoulder.

"Are you okay?" Jake asked her. He gave Paul a glare. "Have you been crying?"

"Yeah. I was just having a fit." She emitted a nervous giggle. "Poor Paul."

"Women always cry around Paul," Jake quipped. "Afterwards," he added.

"Yeah, they cry and they say 'Oh, please Paul, don't leave'," Paul imitated a high pitched, presumably feminine voice.

Bella laughed.

"She's okay, now," Paul noted. "I'm off. Did Sam want me to check in?"

"Yeah. You've missed a few patrols."

"Sure, sure." He gave Bella a final wink before he jogged away. Jake held her a teeny bit closer.

"What are we doing today?" Bella asked him.

"Is the garage okay?" Jake checked.

"Got any sodas?"

"Yeah, they are warming up, right now."

She laughed. "Excellent."

Jake & Bells and warm sodas, and it would all be okay.

FF_2154210_768674209 - 26/03/2012 3:23:00 PM


End file.
